The Tourist season one spoilers below
"Amnesia storylines always feel like a sure-fire way to gather intrigue from the get-go," said the Standard in its 2022 review of The Tourist, the BBC's Australian outback take on The Bourne Identity.
And The Tourist certainly did: Jamie Dornan played a man who wakes up in hospital after a car crash and, for various reasons, he can't simply call up 'Mum' in his phone to find out who he is. On his own, in the middle of nowhere, and then his problems really start as people start showing up to kill him.
The series was a hit, picking up a number of awards and landing a 97 per cent score on Rotten Tomato. Now, with a second series is in the works, we answer the big questions about the thrilling drama.
What is The Tourist about?
Dornan plays an Irish man who has no idea who he is or what's going on. People are chasing him, and he has to work out, quickly, why he is a target, why he is in Australia, and who he used to be before the car accident that left him with amnesia. Part No Country For Old Men, part Bourne Ultimatum, The Tourist sees The Man make allies and enemies in equal measure.
What has happened so far?
After waking up in hospital, The Man does what we'd all probably try and do, and decides to retrace his steps. He finds a note in his pocket that shows that he was supposed to meet someone at a café. He returns to the spot, but soon after his arrival, a bomb goes off. Luckily, a woman called Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) had ushered him outside, and he survives the blast. Then, ominously, someone called Billy (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) turns up at the hospital looking for him.
Luci and The Man plan to track down a person who keeps calling him, which takes the new friends through a sandstorm, on a helicopter into the heart of the desert. When they finally arrive, the caller is there, but she is dead.
The police get involved with Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald) leading the charge. Meanwhile The Man notices that Luci's signature on the helicopter insurance is in the same handwriting as the note that he found in his pocket. It transpires that Luci knows who he is: Elliott Stanley.
From there, the twists just keep coming. Turns out, it was Billy who caused Elliott's car crash by ramming him off the road. After a major chase, Billy and Elliott go head to head which ends up with Billy falling down a well. It looks like the rogue is well and truly dealt with, but once Elliott and Lucy leave the scene, Billy, somehow, manages to crawl out.
Elliott takes Helen as his hostage, to use her as a bargaining chip, in the process becoming the police's most-wanted man. DI Lachlan Rogers (Damon Herriman) tracks Elliot down to his motel, but when Sergeant Rodney Lammon (Kamil Ellis) turns up and suggests they call for backup, Rogers shoots his colleague. Rogers is, in fact, working for Kosta Panigiris (Alex Dimitriades), the town's crime boss. Elliott and Helen start to build a sort of friendship.
After that Elliott goes with Rogers while Helen stays back and mourns the death of her colleague. Crime boss Kostas has taken Rogers' wife hostage, which partly explains Rogers' erratic behaviour. Kostas wants to find a bag full of money and Elliott is apparently involve in its disappearance.
Luci and Helen meet; Elliott starts to have vivid flashbacks. As things start to become clearer, Elliott realises that in the past he met up with Kostas' associate, Marko. His old self seems to have been deeply involved in this crime syndicate. Luci tries to broker a deal with Kostas in order to protect Elliott, meanwhile Helen tries to get to the bottom of the mystery, and, believing Luci to hold the answers, tries to get her to cooperate with the police.
As the series comes to a close, it becomes clear that Elliott is not a good guy after all: he was Kostas' accountant and he had fled with Luci – who it turns out was Kostas' fiancée – after the two fell in love. He stole the bag of cash, with over $1 million inside. Worst of all, he used to force people to have surgery in order to smuggle heroin. He feels ashamed of his past actions. Helen no longer wants to know him.
Is there a trailer for season two?
Not yet – we'll add it here when it is released. For now we've popped season one's trailer at the top of the page. For those only jumping on the bandwagon now, the trailer provides a great flavour of the series: it shows its arid landscape, explosions, car chases, shootouts and everyone's I-should-have-used-sun-cream tan.
When will season two be released?
There isn't a set release date yet, but the series will be landing sometime in the new year.
Who is in the cast?
Australian actor Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$) joins Dornan on screen. She features alongside Shalom Brune-Franklin (Our Girl, Doctor Doctor), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Alex Dimitriades (The Heartbreak Kid), Genevieve Lemon (The Piano, The Power of the Dog), Damon Herriman (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood).
Dornan is best known for playing Christian Grey in the three film adaptations of the Fifty Shades of Grey book series (2015-2018), and for playing serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC Two series The Fall (2016). More recently he has starred in sci-fi horror, Synchronic (2019), Belfast (2021), Gal Gadot's recent action-thriller, Heart of Stone (2023) and Kenneth Branagh's A Haunting In Venice and Belfast.
Who has made The Tourist?
The Tourist was written by Harry and Jack Williams, the creators of the BAFTA-nominated British anthology series The Missing. The brothers produced and developed Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag, and created the ITV thriller series Liar (2017-2020) and Angela Black (2021).
The Tourist's score has been composed by Emmy-nominated Swiss-British musician Dominik Scherrer, whose credits include Ripper Street (2012-2016), An Inspector Calls (2015) and The Serpent (2015).
What have the critics said?
Despite the 97 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, the BBC six-parter pulled in mixed reviews. The Standard gave it three stars, but The Independent raved about the series and its lead actor: "Despite the excellent supporting performances, inevitably The Tourist depends on Dornan. Given that the plot revolves around his not remembering anything, he gives his nameless character a surprisingly vivid sense of inner life... The Tourist might be his best work yet."
Other papers described the drama as "fun, stylish and confident caper", and as having an "offbeat humor and touches of the surreal to a gripping central plot".
